Reviews and Comments

On paper this ticked a load of really interesting boxes and has won a load of awards and been well reviewed.

Sentient spaceships, futuristic cultures, and space opera in general - sounds good!

I just didn’t find the story interesting and honestly I was bored from about 25% onwards.

I will try the second book at some point just in case it’s a timing thing or a slow start to the series.

I wasn’t a fan of the writing style and I was irritated by how that translated to the repetition of long names over and over in the audio presentation.

I've struggled a bit with other murder mysteries set in fantasy worlds because I have a problem with needing the rules to be defined.

This gave me hope - the world was really well built, with just the right amount of strange combined with enough of the real world to keep me engaged.

The point-of-view Watson character was fun - a guy enhanced to have a perfect memory. This was a weirdly cool way of simulating the fact the reader can flick back a few pages if they missed something...

Ana, the other main character is a cross between Sherlock Holmes and L Lawliet who was well written and the end of the book left me wanting to know much more about her.

I'll definitely be picking up the sequel in April.

Everyone loves a bit of plague.

An interesting read (written in the usual accessible fashion) on some of the illnesses of the middle ages with a focus on their presentation in osteoarchaeology.

I think I now know an uncomfortable amount more about the skeleton living inside me. The description of some diseases such as Paget's were incredibly well done.

The chapters around Thomas Becket and Anchorites were the highlights of this book for me. I think I'd have liked just a little bit more on the history side, it felt fleeting and over very quickly.

I really wanted to like this, and enjoyed the premise (time loop / can't die in a DnD inspired setting).

As the book went on it felt more like reading someone's self-insert fanfiction. The main character has a serious case of woman-written-by-a-man. Other characters felt very one dimensional and single purpose.

The plot was okay, but didn't do enough with the time loop trope, and fizzled out a bit to set up the next book. Footnotes were a cool idea but were really only used as parethentical asides to add a snarky joke.

I enjoyed this more than Redshirts. A fun read that doesn't take itself too seriously. I really felt like I was reading a movie.

A nice self contained plot with plenty of foreshadowing, but I did want a little bit more in the payoff at the end. Plenty of contemporary references and stabs at corporate America. The cat thing was juuuust about on the line and didn't go overboard.

I liked the premise of random guy inserted into villainous empire but i did feel like Charlie's handling of it felt a bit "chosen one". I'd have liked to see a few more disasters along the way.

Narrated by Wil Wheaton, who was perfect and complemented the book's humour perfectly. If you've listened to Ready Player One, he brought a similar nerdy enthusiasm to it.

I went into this with lower expectations after reading the first.

While the end felt much more interesting and well written, most of the book I struggled to pay attention and I'm not sure a huge amount really happened.

This book did a better job of sticking to Briseis's viewpoint. It turns out I've preordered the third which is due out later this month, so I guess I'll stick all the way through, but I don't think I'd recommend this series.

This started off strongly on the promise of telling the story of women in the Trojan war. I feel like by the time we got halfway through Achilles was centre stage and it never really recovered.

I also felt like I was being told rather than shown, especially for Briseis and Patroclus’s relationship.

I’m going to read on into the next book to see what that’s like, because I still enjoyed the retelling.

Definitely helps if you’re familiar with the references / names that get dropped.

This was a bit of a mixed bag. A really cool concept featuring an inverted ecosystem however the plot itself was quite boring.

Slow start, more compelling middle, followed by a disappointing end. It looks to be set up for a sequel though according to the author it’s a standalone.

I enjoyed the comedic touches and the creative narration style but it’s hard to recommend this especially compared to Tchaikovsky‘s other books which are great.

Started off strong, and there are some interesting anecdotes about the CIA.

Started to lose interest as it seemed to repeat the same few points framed slightly differently. Not really sure who this book is for.

There are some good passages around the importance of connection and vulnerability, and I enjoyed the discussion around anti-vax and gun control.

This is the first “love story” I’ve read and while I don’t think I can review this without oversharing, I thought it was quite heavy hitting.

My third attempt at a Turton novel and I think I'm going to have to accept his books just aren't for me.

While I enjoyed the premise more than 7.5 Deaths and Dark Water, I still struggled with the "mystery story but you can't know the rules" aspect. I think I spent far too much energy trying to solve bits of the plot when actually just going along for the ride and enjoying the reveals would have been a better approach.

That said, there's some beautiful prose, and the audiobook narrator did a spectacular job.

I think this book suffered from my reading it directly after Ancestors. It felt like it covered a lot of the same ground and didn't have quite the same spark.

Still, it was an enjoyable read and I enjoyed the insight into time team and changes in approaches to burial.